


Slippery Slope

by PoeticNepeta



Series: Insomnia Falls [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bipper, By attraction i mean obsession, Consensual Possession, Dreams vs. Reality, Gen, Isolation, Magic-Users, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction, Partial Mind Control, Possession, Sleep Deprivation, insomnia falls au, just bill is creepily obsessed with dipper, the pairing is not really romantic at all honestly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2452454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoeticNepeta/pseuds/PoeticNepeta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was never supposed to go this far. He just hadn't known when to stop, and now he had to deal with the consequences.</p><p>--------------------</p><p>What if Dipper started to practice magic and it got extremely out of hand?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a fic based off of iridescentoracle's Insomnia Falls AU Idea (You can read the post here, although it will have spoilers for what will happen in the fic: http://iridescentoracle.tumblr.com/post/99937419717
> 
> I tend to write really short chapters and ill try to actually stick with this but i make no promises because life is difficult

It wasn’t supposed end up this way. It wasn’t supposed to go this far. Dipper gritted his teeth (Could you grit your teeth when you didn’t have a body, even a ghost body?), trying to force back the panic that was slowly bubbling inside him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but he just hadn’t known where to stop.

After that whole fiasco with the puppets, Dipper had just been examining the journal a little more than usual. Bill had said he was close to figuring it out. He thought that, maybe, if he just kept looking over everything, something would click and he’d figure everything out. One day, shut in the attic while Mabel was off doing something- he didn’t know what but he was pretty sure she had mentioned glitter- he had a thought. He was lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling with the journal open on his chest, and suddenly remembered a few things. He remembered the first time they met Bill, when he manipulated the dreamscape. He had been really powerful, then. And, when he had summoned those zombies- he had managed to call a lot of them, maybe more than someone else might have called. 

He sat up, brow furrowed. Those two incidents seemed a lot like magic to him. He started to flip through the journal, looking for incantations. He marked each one with a little bookmark, cogs churning in his mind. Magic existed, in some way, given the whole summoning zombies thing he had done. And _he_ had done magic. Could he do more? That might give him an edge, and help him figure this town out. He finally chose one incantation. He read the page, solving the few cryptograms and checking for blacklight-messages. He didn’t want to mess up like with the zombies. Finally, he set the book down. He held up a hand, and looked at it. The incantation was so short that he had already memorized it. He took a deep breath.

“Lux Captiatus Manu Fulge.” he intoned. 

Then he squinted as a bright light flared from his palm, throwing shadows around the room. He grinned, heart starting to race, breathless in his excitement. It was so easy! He hadn’t made a breakthrough with the journal since the black light, but now he could study the spells. If anything, they could help on adventures. Then, he heard the door open and clenched his hand, extinguishing the light.He turned around to see Mabel.

“Hey, bro-bro!” she said, bouncing in. “Do you want to go hang out at the pool?” 

Dipper’s brain took a moment to process her words. “Huh? Oh. No thanks. I’m just looking through the journal again.” 

“Okay! Just get some sunlight at some point, before you turn into vampire.” She giggled, before leaving. Dipper watched her go, then closed the door and returned to his journal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The latin incantation translates to "Light having been caught shine from my hand"  
> Yeah this is short


	2. Chapter 2

The light spell was just the start. Dipper could feel himself standing at the brink of a mass of possibilities. He wanted to learn everything.

He worked when no one was around, practicing the spells he had learned, and learning new ones. It had to do as much with will power as with saying the words right, he found. And he needed to be focused, which was why he worked alone.

He still hung out with Wendy and Soos and Mabel every once in a while, but the Journal was always on the edge of his mind. He had so much left to learn, and he had to learn it quickly. Besides, the spells he was learning could help him and his friends. He learned a compass spell, which would help him find his way. Fire spells, if he needed heat or to scare off a monster. Invisibility spells, good for sneaking around. A healing spell that he made sure he had perfect. They always got scratched up on adventures, and he was secretly afraid that someone –that Mabel –would get hurt badly. He made notes in the journals for what he could use anything for.

As the days passed, he spent less time hanging out, and more time shut away. He started to sneak out after Mabel had gone to sleep, sneaking up to the hideaway on the roof to keep working. This was far more important than sleep, and he’d always sneak back down before sunrise, getting a few hours of sleep.

There were more spells in the book, dangerous spells. At first, he shied away from them, but as he exhausted the simpler ones his thirst for knowledge drew him onward. Besides, he could just use that breaking spell for large branches. And being able to suck away the oxygen from an area was just too cool not to know. It wasn’t like he was going to use it. He just wanted to know, that’s all.

A few days after he started to sneak out at night to work, Mabel noticed the bags under his eyes. “Woahh, you look like a zombie.” she said, mouth full of cereal, as Dipper came down the stairs.

“Huh?” Dipper went and sat down next to her, pouring cereal for himself.

She poked the edge of his eyes. “Bap! You’ve got huge bags there.”

Dipper rubbed his eyes, holding back a groan. “I just didn’t sleep well last night.” he mumbled. “Don’t worry about it.”

Mabel grinned. “I bet you were just reading your summer reading book, the one with the capers. But your secret’s safe with me.”

She got up, dusting off her skirt. “Grunkle Stan!” she called. “I’m going shopping with Grenda and Candy!”

“Good riddance!” he called back.

“Love you too!” Mabel ran out the door with a wave at Dipper. He watched her go, putting down his spoon. She’d been spending even more time out than usual, but that was fine by him. It just gave him more time to work. He got up, dropping his bowl in the sink, and started to head up. He heard the door open and looked back, seeing Wendy coming in. She waved at him and he waved back. “Mr. Pines, I’m here!” she called out, before looking at Dipper, a smile tugging the corner of her lips. “Hey, Dipper, you want to hang out while I work? I could use the entertainment. I hate Wednesdays.”

Dipper shifted from foot to foot, one step still on the stairs. On one hand, it was Wendy, and he still did have a bit of a crush on her, even if he knew it could never amount to anything. But, he had just started on a large page of spells last night and he wanted to keep working at it. He had to keep practicing everything, so he could use the spells quickly, when he needed them. He bit his lip, then sighed. “Sorry.” he said, searching for an excuse. “I wanted to do some summer work today. Later.” He left before she could say anything, but he could feel her watching him as he climbed


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper has some trouble with a spell and has an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Naima T for Beta reading this for me. <3

Dipper spent the rest of that day shut in his room, pouring over spells. He had gathered some items with which to practice, sticks and some pieces of clothing mainly. He didn’t want to hurt anything to practice the healing spell, even if the damage would be quickly fixed, so he practiced on ripped clothes. He had been quickly making progress, getting faster with the incantations and succeeding nearly every time.

The only time he left the room most days was to eat or use the bathroom. Sometimes, his eyes would blur and his head would throb until he couldn’t focus anymore, leaving him to lie on his bed, utterly useless. But yesterday, he’d made himself a cup of coffee while Grunkle Stan was giving a tour. The taste was bitter (although it got better when he remembered to add some milk and sugar), but the caffeine cleared his head and let him keep working.

 

That night, he sat on the roof, a cup of coffee steaming next to him, examining a new spell. This one was complicated. It allowed him to move an object without touching it, which meant he not only needed to perform the incantation, but also control where the item would go. He had next to him a pencil, a small ball, and a hard-cover book, to use as practice, but he ignored them as he focused on the journal page before him. “Might as well try it out,” he murmured, shifting so he sat crosslegged and facing the three objects, the journal in his lap.

He closed his eyes, focusing, then opened them and pointed at the pencil, glancing between it and the incantation in the book.

“Suppellex Suppellectilus, Ducere. Pare Imperium. Move Meo.”  

He felt a small tug in his chest as the pencil started to glow faintly, but the light died as soon as it began. Dipper scowled, then tried again.

“Suppellex Suppellectilus Ducere. Pare Imperium. Move Meo!”

The pencil didn’t even light up this time. He bit his lip. “Stupid spell.” he muttered. “Stupid pencil, refusing to- to-” His words were cut off as a yawn overtook him. He closed his eyes and covered his mouth, then picked up the pencil and looked at it. “It’s not like any of the other spells were this hard. How am I even supposed to ‘exert my will’ on you anyways?”

Suddenly a wind blew by, making the trees shake. Dipper was suddenly struck with a sense of deja vu. He slipped the Journal into his vest on instinct, sticking the pencil in his pocket so it wouldn’t blow off the platform, and stood up, tense all over. He remembered this. He looked up at the moon, eyes squinting against the wind. Then he felt his head suddenly become bare. “My hat!” he cried, realizing it had just blown off. He turned, reaching out to try to grab it, and realized the world had suddenly become grayscale. And there behind him, holding his hat, floated Bill Cipher.

“You dropped something, Pine Tree! Ahahahaha!” he said, his voice echoing.

“Bill! What are you doing here? Give me back my hat!” Dipper shouted, holding tightly to the journal. He furrowed his brow in confusion as Bill flicked his hand and his hat floated back over onto his head.

“Sure thing, kid. Wouldn’t want you to lose your signature piece.” Bill floated until he was leaning against the roof of the building, putting his hands behind his head. “As for why I’m here, I just wanted to check up on ya. How’s your arm doing?” Ghost forks appeared in Dipper’s arm for a second.

Dipper backed up a step, glancing behind him to make sure he wouldn’t walk off the platform, and grabbed his arm. When he went to the hospital after the puppet fiasco, the doctors had said he’d sprained it. He’d had to deal with a splint until he finally used his healing spell and fixed it up. “Why do you care? It’s your fault it’s hurt in the first place.”

“Hey, I wanted to apologize about that. The pain was fun for me, but I never wanted to hurt you, kid. I would’ve fixed up the body if your sister didn’t force me out.”

“Somehow, I’m having trouble believing you.”

“It’s the truth! Besides, kid, I don’t even want to take the journal from you anymore.”

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me right. You can keep it!”

“Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I told you this once already: I like you, kid. I just thought that you couldn’t handle all the power in there. Believe me, you do not want to see what happens when someone has power and can’t handle it. But I was wrong about you. All this magic practice proved that to me. You deserve that journal.” Bill straightened up. “I mean it.”

Dipper wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing. Bill had just apologized, then said he deserved the journal. “How do I know that you aren’t lying to me?” he asked. This was suspicious as all heck.

“You don’t, not really. Trust isn’t that easy. But I could try to make things up to you, a little.” Bill tapped his finger against his face, thinking, then raised one hand in the air as a light bulb literally lit up above his head. “I know! I’ll help you with the Telekinesis spell!”

Dipper gaped at him for a moment, before regaining his composure. “There’s no way I’m making another deal with you,” he shot back.

“I’m not asking for a deal. I’ll just give you some pointers, and we’ll see if you can’t get that spell down. You don’t have to do anything in return. At all!”

Dipper bit his lip, thinking it over. There had to be some trick, right? There was no way Bill Cipher was actually offering to help him for free. “How do I know you won’t steal the Journal the moment I get it out?”

Bill rolled his one eye. “Do you really think I couldn’t just take the journal if I wanted to?” he asked. He held out a hand, twitching finger. Dipper’s vest opened and the Journal floated out, before landing in Dipper’s hands. “Why don’t you just show me what you’re doing, I’ll give my advice, and you take it if you want to?”

Dipper held the Journal to his chest, looking at him suspiciously. But… he believed Bill, when he said he could take it if he wanted it. And he did need help. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t think this changes anything.” He opened the Journal to the page, and prepared the spell.

\----

After Bill helped him figure out the Telekinesis spell, he stayed and, strangely enough, chatted. Thinking back, Dipper still couldn’t quite figure out how things went from Bill teaching him a spell to Dipper explaining his summer reading book and Bill telling a few stories about the Dreamscape. Nothing strange happened, no screaming heads or suggestions of deals. Dipper even found himself laughing at Bill’s jokes.

When Bill left, Dipper started awake, to see it was nearly morning. He smiled sleepily. “Maybe he’s not so bad after all,” he murmured, before getting his things and climbing back down into the Shack.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long. My life has been crazy. The incantation translates to "Household items be led. Obey the order. Move for me"


End file.
